Dude Where’s My Car?

Arnold Clark Automobiles, Europe’s largest independent auto dealer, probably is no longer asked “dude, where’s my car?” thanks to a Cisco Unified Wireless Network and an AeroScout Vehicle Tracking solution at its Stafford, U.K. dealership. To the consumer, the mobility solution is transforming the automobile sales and service experience. On the back end, Arnold Clark is improving staff productivity and collaboration, deliving a positive customer experience, and helping reduce expenditures and inventory depreciation, loss and theft while freeing up resources for alternative investments.

In the following video, tour the Arnold Clark Automobiles Stafford, U.K. dealership, and hear from managing director, Eddie Hawthorne, staff, and Boston Network’s Scott McEwan who discuss the business benefits of the Cisco Unified Wireless Network and AeroScout asset tracking solution that are enhancing customer service and sales.

Enter Arnold Clark Automobiles. The car dealership has 145 locations across the United Kingdom with 8,000 employees, and sells more than 200,000 vehicles per year. When a customer arrives to the sales lot, associates have less than 10 minutes to engage the customer and find the right car. And, with more than 1,000 cars for sale at any given time at its 12-acre flagship dealership in Stafford, this situation poses a challenge – a challenge that can often result in the customer losing interest and a sales opportunity is lost.

In the past, Arnold Clark staff physically searched for cars that met a buyer’s specific requirements, an extremely inefficient process that often resulted in customers losing interest and leaving for another automobile dealership. To give you some perspective, if you lined up 1,000 cars, the distance is more than four miles long. The business impact is overwhelming as cars depreciate every day, and immediately locating the right car for a customer is like finding the sought-after needle in a haystack. Now, a car that arrives on the sales lot is affixed with an AeroScout Wi-Fi tag and its information and specifications are entered into the inventory management system within one hour, versus the one to three days that the old process required. When searching for a car, Arnold Clark sales staff enter customer requirements into the inventory management system, and the AeroScout solution instantly locates the relevant cars on the premises, whether indoors or outdoors.

The vehicle tracking application is also used to locate customers’ cars brought to the dealership for maintenance and repair service. Arnold Clark can track any car throughout the service process, improving staff efficiency and customer satisfaction in its service department. Initial results show an increase of 3 percent more cars serviced each week and a savings of 10 minutes per associate, per car serviced. With the time saved, Arnold Clark can allocate the resources to other areas of its business.

Another benefit to the vehicle tracking application is preventing inventory shrinkage and theft. AeroScout Exciters — placed throughout the dealership — trigger the Wi-Fi tags to alert personnel when an unauthorized car leaves the dealership, so that they can respond accordingly.

Aston Kutcher, if you make your way to the U.K., stop by Arnold Clark Automobiles, and ask, “dude, where’s my car?” They’ll bring it right out.

Since we have the trackers for the vehicles, I can say that lot of people are now feeling cool and calm. Here in my country we have many companies offering the tracking systems and lot of people are really loving these trackers.

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